iMessage and FaceTime number has expired

I just had this exact notification that would not go away and I tried absolutely everything, but this is what worked for me!

Go to Settings --> Messages --> Send & Receive

You should see the same notification about the phone number expiring in the "Send & Receive" tab again, but this time with a red "Remove From iMessage and Facetime" button underneath. Press this button.

Now under Send & Receive you should see your phone number still there, but without the checkmark next to it that indicated that it is active.

Simply press on your phone number and it will activate it again with both iMessage and Facetime again. You should see that small checkmark next to it again.

This is what took the notification away for me, no messages or anything were lost in the process by pressing remove.

I solved this issue for myself and my wife. We changed our providers recently. For us the issue was caused when we put the new sims in the phones. It should take 24hrs for the numbers to port over but it took much longer. So we had to reinsert our old sims. Within the phones settings the carrier is still using our old number but the phone also registered the new number, so two numbers. So...

1. go to iMessage and FaceTime in settings
2. remove all numbers listed if you can
3. above Messages in settings go to Phone and if your number is incorrect as ours were change it to the correct number.
4. go to you Apple ID profile at the very top of settings and go into the Name, phone numbers and email settings. Check the number there, if there is no number select the little blue “Edit” and add your number.
5. go back and turn off iMessage and FaceTime.
6. turn off phone and remove the sim.
7. power up the phone, reinsert the sim.
8. turn on iMessage and FaceTime. Activate your number.

Its seems like a lot and maybe there’s a quicker way but this sorted this expired number issue for us. Best of luck!

I have the same error but with an eSIM, that mean it is impossible for me to "reinsert" the SIM card!

I finally get rid of the message by following:

Turn off and restart iMessage and FaceTime

1. Go to Settings > Messages and turn off iMessage.
2. Go to Settings > FaceTime and turn off FaceTime.
3. Restart your device:

• • iPhone
  • iPad
  • iPod touch

1. Remove the SIM or Disable the eSIM with the problematic number
2. Turn iMessage and FaceTime back on. Now your problematic number should be gone in setting.
3. Reinsert the SIM or Enable the eSIM after the iMessage and FaceTime is back on
4. Wait for iMessage to activate the number

Ahhh, that annoying message is finally gone. If you simply disable and restart, iMessage somehow still has the "memory" of it.

Reference: If you get an error when trying to activate iMessage or FaceTime - Apple Support

I have this exact issue since porting out my number from one provider to another. I tried reinserting the sim, resetting network, and removing re adding number . Nothing works

I’ve tried to deactivate and reactivate my number many times. Apple asked me to try the following :

1. deactivate FaceTime and iMessage
2. turn off the phone
3. remove the sim
4. re insert the sim
5. turn on the phone
6. turn on FaceTime and iMessage (I see the messages “activating...”

unfortunately the issue appears to start within 2-3 minutes again

Hello, I got the same issue recently. Is there any solution for this?

In my case the issue didn’t have anything to do with the physical SIM card at all. After I ported my number the issue started on my XR. I took the new sim out and put it into an iPhone 6s and no problem or error message. Put it back into my XR and boom, the message started again. Both running same IOS versions. Weeks later I switched to an eSim. Threw my physical SIM card away. Still same error message. The issue resolved itself after a couple of months. Apple could not tell me why.

I recently changed provider and had the same problem. I tried: Settings - Messages. IMessage was showing as off even though I’ve still been receiving them. I turned it on (swipe right). I then checked ‘send and receive’ - double check your phone number is ticked as well as any emails you use. Mine displayed the temporary new provider number initially and then updated to my ported number. Haven’t had error message since...yet!

Hi,

I had the new Sim in the phone from step 1 onwards, the old sim had been disconnected at that stage and our numbers were ported over. It’s was a few days earlier when we first inserted the new sims not realizing that our numbers had not yet ported over that caused our issue. Our phones registered the numbers connected to our new sim but our Apple ids were still connected to our original numbers.

hope that makes sense. 👍🏻

I have a ticket open with Apple engineering team and hopefully they can check my logs and get me a resolution this week. For me the issue happens right after I clear the notification. It just pops right back up again. I transferred from Fido to Telus here in Canada but I don’t think it’s a SIM card issue. My sim doesn’t give me the message when I try it on another iPhone.

My problem resolved by itself. I had a ticket open with Apple but they didn’t have an answer of why the issue resolved . Didn’t follow up with me and I had the reach out in the last two weeks. I was actually quite dissatisfied that Apple could not tell me how the problem fixed itself aside from saying that the agents don’t have all the information from the engineers and that the issue could also be carrier related. They must have some idea where the issue is coming from? It’s a notification. Btw I changed to an e-sim before and the issue persisted so it’s not the physical sim card. Whether it’s a port issue, an Apple back end server issue I don’t know and Apple doesn’t know either apparently. Privacy is always my concern and I hope their is nothing compromised where the telco or Apple do not tell the customer when there are issues with a Apple service registration like iMessage.

Hello, my problem just solved today after re-register my SIM card number to my government. Apparently there is a slight mistake in my phone number registration, although actually I can still use the number to call and SMS before.

Ive also had the same issue. Switched from Vodafone to EE on the 23rd December and I also had lots of notifications telling me it was going to expire in X days and to re-insert SIM. Nothing I’ve done has resolved the issue.

Hi, this has been very helpful! Just a quick question you mentioned about old sim and new sim, could I just ask when you were doing steps 1 - 6 did you have the old sim in the phone and on step 7 change back to the new sim?

Thanks!

I went overseas, used the network over there and got the same issue when I got home.

The only way I could find to fix it was to back up my iPhone then do a full reset i.e. go to Settings>General>Reset>Erase all content and settings

NB: THIS WILL DELETE EVERYTHING AND TAKE THE PHONE BACK TO AS IF IT WAS NEW FROM THE FACTORY. DO A BACKUP BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS.